Monday, 17 December 2012

Van Morrison with the BBC Big Band – Edinburgh - 1995

Despite what the bootleg recording CD states, the gig did in fact take place at Edinburgh Festival Hall

6th August 1995

Edinburgh Festival Hall

This
one, on the face of it, looked like a match made in heaven: Van Morrison
performing alongside the BBC Big Band.
It appeared to offer the perfect opportunity for The Man to dust down a
number of his songs which relied heavily on horns/brass arrangements, and give
them a new lease of life. The Way Young
Lovers Do, Jackie Wilson Said, Real Real Gone all sprung to mind. Perhaps even that fiendishly complex epic
from the Common One album Summertime in England would get an airing.

But
regretfully, no. VM was at this time rekindling
an interest in jazz standards; a penchant which would lead to him recording his
How Long Has This Been Going On collection the following year. Indeed, ten of the fourteen songs we heard
this evening pitched up on that release.

Thus
it was we were three songs in (although the third of these was a jaunty
rendition of Ray Charles’ Early in the Morning) before we heard an original. And even then it was the title track from his
most recent album Days Like This; hardly a composition which required much in
the way of Big Band beefing-up.

All
Saints Day was impressive though, as was the rearranged I Will Be There, but
thereafter Van dropped the tempo considerably, and many of the big band lads
must have wondered what they had been invited along for, as low key tunes such
as Vanlose Stairway, Got To Go Back and Haunts of Ancient Peace were trotted
out.

Van
did manage to rip things up a bit before the end with a memorable rendition of
Mose Allison’s witty Mind is on Vacation and the obligatory Moondance, but no
encores were forthcoming.

And
once again I found myself driving home from a VM gig slightly irked at the
almost wilfully contrary choice of set.